Number of People Worried About Mass Shootings Rises

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Number of People Worried About Mass Shootings Rises

© ARTFULLY PHOTOGRAPHER / Shutterstock.com

As the visibility and number of mass shootings in the United States rises, so has the worry that people or their families will be victims. The figure has risen particularly since four years ago.

According to a new Gallup survey on worry about mass shootings and terrorism, taken from September 16 to September 30, 16% of those questioned were “very worried” about shootings for themselves or their families, which is up from 11% in December 2015. In the latest survey, 29% were somewhat worried, 28% were “not too worried” and 27% were not worried at all.

The latest readings on shooting worries are nearly identical to those last August, several weeks after 31 people were killed in two separate mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, over a 13-hour period. At that time, a record-high 48% of Americans said they were worried (“very” or “somewhat”) about being a mass shooting victim.

The gun violence problem has become an epidemic. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 328 mass shootings this year. Other definitions of such attacks put the number lower, as low as 21 deadly mass shootings, according to ABC News. That does not mitigate the level of the problem.

No matter how the mass shooting numbers are measured, many people obviously believe that the problem is close to home.

[nativounit]

[recirclink id=584540]
[wallst_email_signup]

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618